For years now the conservative administration in Ottawa to the US’s north has systematically sought to bring order and consistency to the message its research bureaus deliver to the public. Canada’s elected leadership has larded on rules that make it tough for gov’t scientists to answer calls from reporters and yak away without a pr person or other message overseer calling the shots ahead of time. The way I interpret recent news stories on the issue, if you’re in a Canadian ministry and say, without a permit and in public, for example that global warming is bad and worsened by processing and igniting tar, be prepared for an official visitor with a very stern expression. No matter what you say, if you don’t get permission first you’ll still be in hot water. Obedience and order are essential in some circumstances. Overdone, they are key to effective tyranny. Not that Canada has gone that far. But we here in the US need to take a lesson and a chance, let freedom rein, and suffer the occasional confusion that comes from open democracy as a small price of the American way of life. It seems inevitable that if an adviser goes off the rails with the press or Congress he or she may still get static or be canned, but a lumbering process of approval in advance of a chance to shoot one’s mouth off just gums up open government. In the end the public is less informed.
Ahem, suspending pontification for a moment, let us turn to a directly pertinent story on the wire this week:
- AP – Dina Cappiello: THE BIG STORY/ Groups to EPA: Stop Muzzling Science Advisers ; BIG STORY is AP’s tag for enterprising and analytical treatments of news. Cappielo quotes a recent memo from an EPA suit declaring that “unsolicited contacts” between people on EPA’s advisory committees and the rest of the world need to be “appropriately managed.” Given the roundup at the bottom of this post I am unsure whether AP’s was the first coverage, but it was certainly key to spreading the news widely.
I do hope that opening graf up there is just my hysteria talking, but the fact remains that a wave of message discipline within federal agencies that the last Bush administration let loose has largely been left in place during the Obama years. Republicans tend to be distrustful of disorder, but it is odd to see the more loose-goosey, mess-tolerant Democrats sticking to the same path away from a free press and open conversation between government-paid people and the general public.
Cappielo’s story is well crafted, short and focussed on a few specific examples but with reference to the larger issue. It also provides a link to the memo that has gotten reporters, editors, and some scientific organizations upset. One would have welcomed, however, better description of the motives of those inside EPA as they themselves see things. One rather expects that they regard a smooth, orderly, considered, and consistent message on EPA policies and deliberation a public service (not to mention it makes life easier by reducing the number of brushfires lit when somebody in the know goes off officially declared message). They likely are sincere and good company. One would like to ask the EPA chief of staff: Aren’t a little, open messiness of process and contrary arm–waving good things, symptoms of healthy democracy?
- EPA Chief of Staff Memo to science advisory boards: EPA Policy Regarding Communication Between (…advisers..) and Parties Outside of the EPA.
Other Stories and Grist for the Mill:
- The Hill – Laura Barron-Lopez: Journalists to EPA: Stop muzzling scientists ;
- E&E Greenwire – Robin Bravender: EPA: Journos, watchdog groups accuse agency of muzzling scientists ;
- Union of Concerned Scientists News Center Press Release: Journalism, Science Groups Decry EPA Move to Muzzle National Science Advisers ;
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